ICT and Family Learning
Project Status : Completed
NIACE is interested in what motivates adults to learn and is also interested in all contexts and settings where adults learn, not only formal settings such as colleges, universities and the workplace, but also more informal settings such as in the family and the home.
Family learning can encompass many activities – it could be watching a television programme together and discussing it afterwards or it could be learning a new skill together such as ICT.
NIACE began working on this project in the spring of 2000 on behalf of the Leicestershire Training and Enterprise Council, now the Leicestershire Learning and Skills Council. Our remit was to consider the impact of home computers and access to the Internet on families in Leicestershire. Our project looked at who uses the computer in a family setting and for what purposes and we also considered issues such as family members’ thoughts about the idea of on-line learning. For many learners, the benefit of pursuing on-line courses is that it allows them to study at a time, place and pace to suit themselves.
Information technology has the potential to enrich people’s lives but at the same time it can further disadvantage and exclude certain groups and families from being able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by current technological developments. Those families who do not have access to the equipment are therefore not able to gain the maximum benefit from ICT. One of the Government’s priorities is to consider strategies that reduce or remove the risk of exclusion and in March 2001, Michael Wills, Minister for Learning and Technology announced that people living in poor or isolated areas would receive free computers as part of a £10 million Government scheme.
NIACE’s project aimed to consider the needs of all types of families including lone parents, families with young children, families with teenage or adult children, multi-generational families and older families perhaps with grandchildren. For the purposes of the project we looked at families who were new to computing as well as those who already had some expertise and we also looked at what help and support they needed in order to benefit from new technology.
Questionnaires were sent out to a number of learners who were taking part in IT training courses both within the city of Leicester and throughout the county. These were then followed up by telephone calls to the families who indicated that they would be willing to take a further part in the survey.
66% of those interviewed said that they would be interested in taking part in on-line learning courses and felt that studying in this way would fit in better with their domestic circumstances.
The full findings of the survey are contained in the project report “ICT and Family Learning” produced in August 2001.
For more information/copy of the report contact: Jackie Essom, Jackie.Essom@niace.org.uk
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